I appreciate what they were trying to accomplish with the Journal that gets passed around. The Journal does a good job of keeping the game flowing, and I like how everyone gets to experience every phase as the game goes on. But what was the point of burying and scattering all of the specific rules throughout the Script book? We just did our first play through and we would have killed for a "standard" rulebook (aka all the detailed rules in one place), or at least the very least an index, in addition to the Journal. I know you're supposed to trust the book as it supposedly only presents information as you need it, but there are a lot of little things that get missed (for instance, being able to spend fatigue to carry more weight back for scavenging). We also made a big mistake and assumed that visitor cards would be drawn as a result of fate or night raids or something, and missed the spot on the board about going outside during the day. The game teaches you to focus on the journal, and makes no mention of going outside for visitors. I want to try it again now that we know more about how things work, but it'll be a hard sell to get my group to want to play this again. I can't believe it has such a high rating.

I'm not posting this to prove you wrong, because (ordinarily) I'm first in line complaining about lack of an index, or poor rulebook organization. If their rules format bugs you, then it bugs you, and that's fine.

I love this game, and had a blast discovering the "hidden" rules. I encourage you to try it again, simply because when you finally pull off a win, it will feel like you've accomplished something no other co-op game can match.

If you do try it again, try this: read all the FAQs in the Journal, and chase down all the "advanced" rules which appear at the end of most FAQ entries. Play the game a few times by yourself so you'll feel you can handle most questions which will arise during play.

Some folks in my group didn't care for it; others loved it. If you're prepped for the rules, then the reasons some may dislike it won't be (for example) because the group can't figure out how to give everyone a third action on the first day.

Again, I'm not trying to belittle your experience or game teaching abilities. I just like this game so much I want to encourage anyone who hit problems like you did (and I'm quite sure you're not alone here) to give it at least one more try.

Personally I really enjoyed how they organised the learning of this game. So nice to be able to get into it without having to read a big old book of rules before you even begin. I found it easy to learn this way, as you read some rules, play them out, read some more, play those out and so on. The whole book of scripts is full of experiences and it was neat that learning the game was incorporated into that as well. I learn and memorize by doing, this system worked very well for me.

Very unnecessary spreading the rules out in the book of scripts. The FAQ pages are right there in the journal so naturally you're going to read them. They could have done a seperate reference book with the FAQ just like FFG does and told players to only read it when needed. I learnt to play Mansions of Madness 2nd edition through the "learn to play" and only looked at the reference book half way through the first game briefly when i had a doubt.

Luckily the community here on BGG is great and I found a file in the file section that compiled the FAQ all together into one document. Printed it out and ended the constant flipping through the huge book for specific rules.